


love is no big truth

by olavidalo



Series: . [5]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Non-Con, F/M, Gen, M/M, references to infidelity, ~Mystical Soul Bonds~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olavidalo/pseuds/olavidalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logically, Harry knows Zayn had it worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is no big truth

**Author's Note:**

> I. All lies. Unbeta'ed, unbritpicked lies.  
> II. Title, of course, from the Kings of Convenience song.

_driven by our genes,_  
 _we are simple selfish beings_

 

It’s hot, in the back of the cab.

Harry leans his head against the cool of the glass and squints until everything’s dizzy and half-there. He blinks, clears his vision. The rain’s making everything seem speckled and distant, like one of those Matisse paintings. Monet? Someone French, probably. They’re a talented people, the French.  
  
He leans back, looks at the mark his forehead left on the slightly fogged-up pane, feels Aimee’s laughter coming at him from the other end of the cab, as if on a windy day. It’s not windy, though. It’s raining. Aimee wouldn’t be wearing that dress if it was windy. He glances over and realises Aimee’s not wearing a dress at all. She’s wearing black tights, what? When did that happen?  
  
He must be a bit more drunk than he’d thought. There’s a wry little twist that comes in at the back of his head, like, you think? He swallows a laugh, glad he didn’t take anything. One-way highs rarely work out well for either of them. Being drunk is fine, though. Except for how it makes him horny as hell.  
  
He sits forward in his seat, suddenly tense with nerves, feeling every kilometre that stretches between him and his flat. Nick notices, of course he notices, and pats his left knee erratically (he misses, mostly, and ends up swatting the door.) ‘—oh, where did Jordan go?’ he asks, and Aimee pulls him into a hug, tells him Jordan left with Harley _hours_ ago. ‘Where did—hang on, where’s my other shoe? Harold, where’s my other shoe?’  
  
Harry wipes his palms on the knees of his trousers and shrugs, grinning.  
  
‘There, there, Grimmy,’ says Aimee, picking up the thread, ‘we can stop over at mine. Then you can finally pick up those hideous Vans, yea?’  
‘I don’t want to be _coddled_ ,’ Nick says, with slurred petulance. ‘And I don’t want my Vans, I want my fancy shoe.’ He flops back against Harry, his hair tickling Harry’s throat. ‘Tell the woman, Harry,’ he murmurs, so close Harry can only sort of see his smile. He smells good, underneath the smoke, the dried vodka, the tendrils of Aimee’s perfume.  
  
For a brief, wonderful moment, Harry forgets about everything else but Nick. Even very deeply out of it, he’s got a good look to him - kind of hazily focused, like he could give a blow job in the next minute. He’s good at it, quick, efficient. Doesn’t make Harry work for it. Unlike some other people he could mention.  
  
And, well, Aimee’s good for a laugh, isn’t she? She’s been there loads of times before, when he and Caroline hooked up. She probably wouldn’t mind, even. Nick definitely wouldn’t say ‘no’. He quite likes Harry’s cock; he’s even told him so. But then Harry’s mind kind of stutters and skips back to where it’s been circling all evening, incessantly: ah, no, can’t do that.  
  
Because then there’s Zayn.  
  
‘His shoe’s in your purse, Aimes,’ Harry says, and doesn’t reach out and pull Nick back when he tips sideways to sloppily pat Aimee down. He doesn’t say anything about how Zayn’s been silent and wary for the past five minutes. Because he actually thinks Harry would hook up with Nick in the back of a cab. Because he doesn’t trust him.  
  
Aimee must see the anxious hunger on his face because she shouts Nick down when he tries to convince Harry not to get out at his flat. ‘Our boy has _business_ to attend to,’ she says, and swats his bum when he climbs over her.  
  
Zayn’s leaning against his door, face completely blank.  
  
‘There you are,’ Harry says, nonsensically, happy in spite of himself. The dread’s all wrong in his stomach, turned over into a warm shiver of anticipation. Zayn rolls his eyes, like, where else but in the rain would I be? Really, only Zayn could manage to look so unhappy about a booty call.  
  
‘How was everyone,’ he asks, clearly trying to sound disinterested. He doesn’t quite hit the mark — never does, when it comes to Nick — and he shoves his hands into his pockets when Harry holds back a smile.  
  
‘ _Everyone_ was lovely,’ Harry says, then realises he has them stood out in the rain for no reason other than that he can’t seem to stop staring at Zayn. He forces himself to focus on opening his door. Everything’s so sharp and brilliant it hurts, a bit, to hold open his eyes. He hardly even feels drunk anymore, really, which is almost definitely a side-effect of the adrenalin.  
  
He hears the dripping of Zayn’s jacket, knows he must’ve been out here waiting for awhile. He shouldn’t feel guilty over it: it’s warm out, even, just one of those odd spring sprinkles they’ve been having more and more frequently.  
  
Still - Zayn could’ve brought an umbrella, if he was planning to wait, Harry thinks. No need for Zayn’s hair to be hanging about in his face, making him look so— _so_. He’d catch a cold that way. And then where would they be?  
  
Short a singer who’d have to be on bed rest for at least a day or two, which would mean his voice would probably be hoarse when Harry made him come.  
  
Zayn sucks in a breath behind him.  
  
Harry drops his keys. He’s not nervous. It’s shit, is all. It’s just been two days. It shouldn’t be this bad already. It shouldn’t be this bad at all, really, but there’s nothing to be done about it. He jams his keys into the lock, irritation thick over everything else. Could be his, could be Zayn’s.  
  
But then he glances back and sees that Zayn’s shoulders have come down from around his ears, finally, that he looks like he’s just gone through a pack of cigarettes. He looks embarrassed. Mostly relieved.  
  
Harry wonders what Zayn would’ve done if he hadn’t come home, if he would’ve just waited in the drizzle for him all night. If he would’ve called him and asked him—begged him to come home.

Or if he must’ve known, as Harry had, that of course Harry would come find him.  
  
He opens the door — his flat still smells stale and empty — and his irritation’s swallowed up entirely, like bread to swimming geese. Zayn’s here. It’ll be fine.  
  
He reaches for Zayn’s hand and walks backwards into the dark.

 

* * *

 

Logically, Harry knows Zayn had it worse.  
  
 _He_ hadn’t been with anyone at the time. But Zayn—Zayn had been in deep with Perrie. And yea, they’d been at that evaluative stage — _where do we go from here? is it really worth all the hassle? why do you keep getting caught with your cock out?_ — but Zayn had said he’d do better.  
  
Or so Harry’d assumed. He’d figured it all out third-hand, when Louis had announced he and Niall were taking Zayn out to celebrate for undisclosed — and therefore very obviously Perrie-related — reasons. Harry, meanwhile, had had a very safe, very restless night of listening to Liam talk over Muppets Treasure Island and discuss the many reasons why it was Dani’s absolute favourite film.  
  
This meant he was well and truly asleep by the time Zayn stumbled into his bunk and poked at him until he woke up. ‘I’le be better,’ he’d said, pushing at Harry until he moved over and let him in. He’d said it like there was no other possible outcome, like there was something still there for him and Perrie, if he just dug down a bit deeper. ‘Like, no way, bro, it’s—we’re too good.’  
  
Harry’d thought, well, okay, good for them, and, in his half-charmed haze of exhaustion, had reached out and gently squeezed the back of Zayn’s neck.  
  
And then there was — just a thin shudder, between them. Harry remembers thinking, sluggish and mostly asleep, oh, that feels like, how, with Louis, hm. But Zayn was already fast asleep underneath his arm, and Harry doubted he’d appreciate being woken up with vague suspicions.  
  
What could he have said, really? ‘I think a prelim’s setting, you should stay away for the next couple of days, maybe, starting right now’? Zayn would’ve killed him. They were both technically unbonded; anyway, these things happened all the time between all of them (except for Liam, of course). So it wasn’t exactly _easy_ , being all up underneath each other every moment of every day, but it was all a matter of perspective.  
  
And being on tour could really fuck with your judgement: it was hard to tell when something had set, or if it just felt like it might. And you didn’t want to—to be so careful with any one person that they thought you were _projecting_ or anything. Harry didn’t want to make it awkward for no reason. Last time, Zayn’d avoided him for an entire week. That had been utter shit.  
  
So Harry’d thought — probably just imagined it, no point making it weird. The plan was to tell Zayn in the morning, just a little joke they’d laugh over later. _Remember how I thought we spontaneously bonded? Ha ha ha._  
  
Only it hadn’t been his imagination at all. And in the morning, there certainly hadn’t been any laughing. Zayn had taken one slow look up at him, face completely open with desire — and then he’d clenched his jaw, rolled out of Harry’s bunk, and disappeared for two days.

 

* * *

 

Harry knows Perrie’d cried because he’s seen the pictures, and he’s sorry over it. Sorry that he ruined a perfectly good — or good enough — relationship with his carelessness, sorry he’s fucked up his friendship with Zayn and made it all weird and tense like it was at the beginning.

Sorry he doesn’t care anymore; that maybe he never had.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Very dated, I know.


End file.
